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Swift vs Xcode: What are the differences?
What is Swift? An innovative new programming language for Cocoa and Cocoa Touch. Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.
What is Xcode? The complete toolset for building great apps. The Xcode IDE is at the center of the Apple development experience. Tightly integrated with the Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks, Xcode is an incredibly productive environment for building amazing apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Swift can be classified as a tool in the "Languages" category, while Xcode is grouped under "Integrated Development Environment".
"Ios" is the primary reason why developers consider Swift over the competitors, whereas "IOS Development" was stated as the key factor in picking Xcode.
Swift is an open source tool with 48.4K GitHub stars and 7.76K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Swift's open source repository on GitHub.
According to the StackShare community, Xcode has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1052 company stacks & 604 developers stacks; compared to Swift, which is listed in 994 company stacks and 541 developer stacks.
Pros of Swift
- Ios253
- Elegant178
- Not Objective-C125
- Backed by apple106
- Type inference92
- Generics60
- Playgrounds54
- Semicolon free49
- OSX39
- Tuples offer compound variables35
- Easy to learn24
- Clean Syntax23
- Open Source21
- Functional20
- Beautiful Code19
- Linux11
- Dynamic11
- Promotes safe, readable code10
- Protocol-oriented programming10
- Explicit optionals8
- No S-l-o-w JVM8
- Storyboard designer7
- Super addicting language, great people, open, elegant5
- Type safety5
- Optionals5
- Best UI concept5
- Its friendly4
- Swift is faster than Objective-C4
- Feels like a better C++4
- Highly Readable codes4
- Fail-safe4
- Powerful4
- Faster and looks better4
- Much more fun3
- Easy to learn and work3
- Protocol extensions3
- Native3
- Its fun and damn fast3
- Strong Type safety3
- Easy to Maintain3
- Protocol oriented programming2
- Esay2
- MacOS2
- Type Safe2
- All Cons C# and Java Swift Already has2
- Protocol as type2
- Objec1
- Can interface with C easily1
- Numbers with underbar1
- Optional chain1
- Runs Python 8 times faster1
- Actually don't have to own a mac1
- Free from Memory Leak1
- Swift is easier to understand for non-iOS developers.1
- Great for Multi-Threaded Programming1
Pros of Xcode
- IOS Development129
- Personal assistant on steroids32
- Easy setup29
- Excellent integration with Clang17
- Beautiful2
- Built-in everything1
- Con0
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Cons of Swift
- Must own a mac5
- Memory leaks are not uncommon2
- Its classes compile to roughly 300 lines of assembly1
- Complicated process for exporting modules1
- Very irritatingly picky about things that’s1
- Is a lot more effort than lua to make simple functions1
- Overly complex options makes it easy to create bad code0
Cons of Xcode
- Massively bloated and complicated for smaller projects6
- Horrible auto completiting and text editing3
- Slow startup1
- Very slow emulator1